Rabih (Robby) Alkhalil, is currently being held in Greece pending extradition to Toronto. He is wanted as a suspect in a Toronto homicide, but he is also believed to have organized the grisly Sandip Duhre murder in the Sheraton Wall Centre.

Photograph by: Toronto Police Department
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Vancouver police have closed in on a former Surrey man believed responsible for the high-profile slaying of Indo-Canadian crime boss Sandip Duhre in January, 2012.

The Province has learned Rabih (Robby) Alkhalil, who is currently being held in Greece pending extradition to Toronto, is believed to have organized the grisly Duhre murder in the Sheraton Wall Centre. Duhre took several bullets to the head as he sat eating at a high-end restaurant on the evening of January 17.

Alkhalil, 25, was arrested in Greece last month by Toronto police officers who have since charged him in connection with the targeted murder of mobster Johnnie Raposo last June outside a café in Toronto’s Little Italy. Alkhalil is being charged with first-degree murder, but was not the shooter in the Raposo murder.

Alkhalil is also wanted by police in Vancouver, Montreal and Niagara.

The Montreal Police Department claim Alkhalil, along with B.C. Hells Angel Larry Amero and several others, were involved in a huge drug-trafficking operation in Quebec. Despite his young age, Alkhalil was considered the gang’s ring leader.

Alkhalil’s link to Amero is interesting because Amero was seriously wounded in the August, 2011, Kelowna casino shooting in which notorious gangster Jonathan Bacon died.

It was that shooting which triggered a rash of gang violence leading up to the death of Sandip (Dip) Duhre and the Nov. 2012, murder of Duhre associate Sukh Dhak. Dhak and his bodyguard were slain in a Burnaby hotel lobby. In September, 2011, police had warned that anyone associated with the Duhre-Dhak crime group were likely to be targets.

The Duhre-Dhak crime gang were believed responsible for the Kelowna shooting, that also left the niece of a Hells Angels member permanently disabled. The shooting came despite the fact Bacon and his two brothers were once Duhre proteges.

A Province police source said that at least 15 Vancouver police officers have been working the Duhre file and that video evidence from the scene linked the shooter to Alkhalil.

Vancouver police spokesman Randy Fincham said the Duhre investigation is still ongoing and there would be “no pending release of charge information.”

The Province source said that Alkhalil and his associates have over the past few years been surgically taking out rivals across Canada in a bid to control cocaine import and distribution.

It is believed that some of those killings were made knowing other gangs would likely be blamed for the hits.

Alkhalil came to Canada as a baby when his family fled Saudi Arabia in 1990 in the wake of the First Gulf War.

The family arrived in Montreal, claimed refugee status, then moved to Surrey.

In January, 2001, Alkhalil’s brother Khalil was killed in Surrey in a gun battle over a drug debt. Khalil was 19 at the time.

The man who killed Khalil, Michael Naud, was acquitted after pleading self defence. Naud’s father was later shot at, his lawyer beaten, and he was ultimately slain in Kelowna in 2004.

Another of Alkhalil’s brothers — Mamoud — was one of three people killed in the August, 2003, Loft Six Nightclub gun battle. He was also 19 at the time of death and already had a long criminal record with links to organized crime.

After those deaths, the Alkhalil family moved to Ottawa while Rabih was a teen.

Another older brother, Nabil, got involved with the drug trade there and in 2001 was deported to Lebanon.

According to a report in the Toronto Star, both Amero and Jonathon Bacon attended Nabil’s Ottawa wedding.

Two other brothers, Terry and Hisham, are believed to still be living in Canada.

Vancouver Police Department spokesman Randy Fincham said the investigation into the Duhre slaying is ongoing.

“There is no pending release of charge information,” Fincham said.

Toronto Police Service homicide investigator Insp. Greg McLane told a reporter he had not heard of the link between Alkhalil and the Duhre slaying.

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Rabih (Robby) Alkhalil, is currently being held in Greece pending extradition to Toronto. He is wanted as a suspect in a Toronto homicide, but he is also believed to have organized the grisly Sandip Duhre murder in the Sheraton Wall Centre.